Switching capacitor power supplies are incorporated into a vast number of devices used in everyday life, especially devices that require multiple voltage power sources. For example, switching capacitor power supplies are used in a variety of telephony switching devices, cellular telephones, magnetic hard disk drives, fiber optic communication systems and even children's toys. Additionally, such switching capacitor power supplies are often used for systems where a special voltage is needed for only a small portion of a large circuit. For example, many sophisticated processing devices require a main power source for most functions, but also require a lower voltage power source to supply some of the processor's internal memory.
Unfortunately, switching capacitor power supplies often suffer from a number of performance shortfalls, such as relatively poor efficiency and excessive ripple in their outputs. These problems can, in turn, lead to diminished performance of practically any system incorporating the switching power supplies. For example, portable devices may have a shortened battery life, logic states may be inadvertently corrupted and communications devices may have diminished sensitivity.